rain sensor

well, it seems like the small rocks left behind should not be a worry. a couple neighbor said it was not bad. ok, but
the rain sensor is about 2 feet away from the house wall on my fence. i told them to move it further away since i was concerned about rain coming down from the roof giving the sensor wrong info (we do not have gutters). now i saw a reply that it should be on top of the roof? my sprinkler guy said i don't want that since i cannot easily adjust the level of rain it senses or the evaporation amount. also i could not easily reach it to check that it does work.
the location is on the north side of my house and the next house is only about 10 feet away. both are two story houses. should i have them install it even higher up and away from the house?
thanks guys and gals

It is all preference, realistically a rain sensor will do its job if the location is not blocked by trees or overhangs. Our weather comes from west to east normally, so we will not mount a sensor on the east side of the home. The height means nothing but you don't want it to low so you can avoid the curious kid in the neighborhood. You don't want it too high so that you can not adjust without a ladder. We prefer mini-clik sensors the bad thing is they only come with 25 or 30ft of wire which limits you unless you splice and add more wire. We have tried wireless but are very unhappy with what we have seen over the past couple of years from a service standpoint.

got to say,,,first it was the rocks,,,,the neighbors helped you out with that..now its the sensor.....I imagine it will be something else shortly, you are beginning to sound like that kind of customer who is never satisfied and always has something to complain about

How many sprinkler repair trucks do you see carrying extension ladders? The roof-mounted rain detector is more or less unreplaceable and nonadjustable. Fence mounting makes much more sense. As noted, try to avoid placement where it's sheltered from weather. As for rain bounce from a second-story roof, don't worry about it.

Or do worry about it, and pay extra for a wireless rain detector, and place it anywhere within 'radio sight' ~ one nice thing about the Hunter wireless rain detector is the LED display on the control unit, that informs the owner whether or not the detector has tripped.

I agree with the two posts above. Once you were talking about the rocks I thought I had a good picture of you. Then you brought up the rain sensor and the picture was clear. If you tried to put over 2,000 feet of pipe in someones yard I would hate to see how you would leave it. I vote for you to be nice to the irrigator since you will need service and how nice you are will DIRECTLY be reflected in the service you get. Pay the man and enjoy your freetime gained from not having to drag the hoses around.

I've delt with my fair share of PITA's and I don't think zwillinge is one.

Without a picture of the rock mess, its hard to come to a conclusion if he is being too picky, regardless...I'm very picky, and my crew gets every last pebble raked up...Of course, this extra mile of service goes a long way as far as referrals go .

I don't think there is any problem with mounting a rainsensor where it will get rained on by runoff by the roof. If there is substantial runoff, then its raining enough, and regardless of where the sensor is, its going to trip. They aren't all that sensative of devices.

We use the Hunter Wireless rainsensor with great success, the ESP also has a light that comes on when the sensor is on, so you have two indications of the RainSensor working.

If he is a PITA..I hope all my PITAs are like him. He mentioned the rain sensor AND the rocks in the original post, both are legitimate concerns that should have been addressed prior to the job or at the very least, right at the end of the job. Communication w/ the client is probably the #1 complaint I hear about us irrigation guys. Problem is, the company that did his work is probably a "tweener" and doesn't have support personnel in place for this type of thing.

It could be he/she is not...my antenna is up though....what put the antenna there is the neighbors resolved the rock issue in the yard for him/her. Tells me he/she in unsure of how things should go until they go. That could be a problem as mentioned earlier with the communication with the irrigation fella....... his/her unease is a result of those interactions......

And certainly..I should have waited to see if there were more complaints instead of slamming the door. Antenna still up though